


names have been changed to protect the innocent (oh who the fuck am I kidding?)

by aphrodite_mine, beverytender



Category: Party Down
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, runty little puppies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/beverytender/pseuds/beverytender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles, missing scenes, notes, and phone conversations between Henry and Casey. New updates every week until beverytender and aphrodite_mine finish our re-watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spiked Punch

**Author's Note:**

> This should be apparent, but these will include episode-related spoilers, eventually for the entire series. There will be cursing and probably some pretty raunchy sex. And an appropriate amount of Roman-bashing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willow Canyon Homeowners Annual Party

Fourteen dollars and a punch line, she thinks, tugging the elastic out of her hair and sinking into the shitty front seat of her shitty car. Except while she's got the change in her pocket, she's still waiting for the funny part to drop. Maybe that's the joke here. A life full of douchebags and husbands and wives wearing their incomes on their wrists, an afternoon of sliced limes and cheese, an evening where she's the only one without a stomach warm with booze. Ha fucking _ha_. 

And maybe the faces change -- chatting up a gay pirate (who isn't helpful at _all_ ) instead of walking in on Sage grunting in the pantry -- and maybe this week the job prospects look a little brighter if she squints, but she'll still sit in her car until the interior light dims and Douchebag will still be awake, tapping his fingers, waiting for answers. Waiting for his answer, waiting for the right one.

Are we having fun yet?


	2. Yucking it Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> California College Conservatives Union Caucus

She goes through this, like, really ridiculous phase in 8th grade in Northern California where she leaves herself these -- fucking inspirational messages everywhere. Next to her alarm clock: Seize the day! Taped to the bathroom mirror: You can do anything if you work hard enough. On the inside cover of her Geometry notebook: Smile! 

Naturally, 9th grade signals a sea change that basically overcompensated for what a dumbass she'd spent the last year being and Casey dies her hair black and starts smoking weed in the handicapped stall.

*

She doesn't know a single comedian who is happy with his or her respective life.

But maybe that's part of the act.

~~No. It's not.~~

*

Casey isn't stupid. She knows that this isn't just about Vermont, or her career. It's this whole married -- whatever. It isn't just about her husband, or this goddamn catering job. 

It isn't about staying or going.

Except it is. It's about all that.

*

(Freedom-tinis taste like shit.)


	3. don't you dare say it's okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper McMasters' Senior Seminar

A good old boyfriend burning might do the trick. Crying and eating an ungodly amount of ice cream or fro yo or whatever hip young ingenues do these days to signify heartache.

As much as Casey might make fun of the term -- _heartache_ , sitting there dolled up in the fucking clicheist Valentine's sweater -- it's a little apt. She doesn't care about Mike. She spent so much of the last year unhappy that someone smarter or wittier or stronger might have flipped him the bird and run off with the mailman or something else equally enviable and embarrassing. They shouldn't have gotten married in the first place, but what the fuck has every mid-to-late 20s kid in this town been up to if not making terrible choices, decorating the tables of their wedding with disposable cameras, and stocking their fridges with soy milk and granola. 

Henry is... he's there. And less pathetic than a _total_ stranger. And sometimes a warm body does more good than a slice of chocolate cake or two.


End file.
